The Acquia Drupal Debian/Ubuntu "deb package" configures all the software you need to build a Drupal web site on your Ubuntu 9.x, 8.x or Debian 5.x desktop or server, including Acquia Drupal, Apache, MySQL and PHP.

Once all is in place, it creates a fresh MySQL database for an Acquia Drupal website. You complete the installation process by adding specific site details on the Drupal installation screen in the browser.

Once installed, you can work with the installed Drupal codebase and modify it (add modules, create multisite directories, etc.) and your Debian/Ubuntu-native AMP stack (Apache, MySQL, PHP) according to your needs. See "installation details" below for the location of the Drupal docroot directory.

Differences between DAMP stack installer and Debian/Ubuntu package

The Acquia Drupal deb package has five main differences to the Acquia "DAMP" stack installer for Widows and Mac:

• Live or local - The Acquia Drupal Mac and Windows stack installers are development tools exclusively for creating and working on local Drupal installations.

  The Acquia Drupal deb package, on the other hand, installs Acquia Drupal on any Ubuntu 8.x/9.x or Debian 5.x system, including live web servers. It checks all AMP versions and dependencies, configures everything for Drupal and then lets you install an Acquia Drupal site.

  These instructions do not cover configuring your Apache server for live production websites.

• Control panel - Unlike the Mac and Windows stack installers, the Acquia Drupal deb package does not feature a control panel. The site initially installed is accessible through the browser and further sites can be manually added via the file system (see "Installation details" below) and configured in the browser. You can use system tools of your choice to start and stop Apache. Log and configuration files are available in their usual locations in your system.

• Multisite and site import - Drupal multisite and site import into the AMP stack cannot be handled automatically, but can be done in the file system (see "Instalation details" below). For more information on Drupal multiste, see http://drupal.org/getting-started/6/install/multi-site and http://drupal.org/node/107347. multisite.

• phpMyAdmin is not included in the Acquia Drupal deb package, but can be added if needed. Download the latest version from http://www.phpmyadmin.net.

• AMP component installation - The Mac and Windows DAMP stack installers install full, separate AMP stacks into a separate directory whether or not these are present already on the system in question. The Acquia Drupal deb package, on the other hand, uses the AMP components already present in your Linux operating system if they meet minimum version requirements. It installs newer versions of PHP, Apache, and MySQL only if minimum the version requirements are not met.

Installation 1 - GUI

1. Download, begin installation - Download the package from http://acquia.com/downloads. You may either to save it to your local computer then double click it to begin the installation process or you can choose to have the GDebi package manager begin the installation directly.

   The file you download will have a name like: acquia-drupal6_1.2.33-1111.2222_all.deb.

2. Confirm installation by clicking "install package" in the package installer window.

   

3. Enter Ubuntu admin account password when asked to, to allow file retrieval and installation.

   

4. a) Possible error message

   "Could not download all required files, please check your internet connection or installation medium" - If you see this error message acknowledge it and break off the installation process.

   b) Fix - Open the terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and enter the following command. You will need to enter your Ubuntu administrator password when prompted:

   sudo apt-get update
   

   Restart the installation process by double clicking the package and proceeding as above.

5. My SQL Server dependency - The MySQL server is a required dependency of the Acquia Drupal package.

   • a) If mysql server installed already, you may be asked to enter your MySQL root password to continue installing the Acquia Drupal stack.

   • b) If you have not previously installed or used MySQL Server, the package will pause for you to create a MySQL root password:

     • Create MySQL root password - Open the "terminal" dialog in the installer window. Enter a password of your choice and confirm it when asked to.

     • Once you have entered the password, MySQL server installs itself and its dependencies (this may take a while).

     

6. Close the package installer window once the installation is complete.

   

7. Double click "Install Acquia Drupal" to complete installation - Complete the Acquia Drupal installation by adding the required site details like the site administrator's username, the name of the site and contact e-mail on the Drupal installation screen in your browser.

   

   

8. Visit your installed site at http://localhost/acquia-drupal6/

   

Installation 2 - Terminal

If you prefer to use the terminal, or are installing the Acquia Drupal package on a system with no GUI like a remote web server, follow the instructions below. They assume that your web server is directly accessible to the internet and that there are no other websites installed on it.

1. Download, transfer to server - Download the package from http://acquia.com/downloads. Save it to your local computer, then transfer it, if necessary, to your remote server.

2. Install package - Once the package is on the system where it will be installed, execute the following command in the terminal using the exact file name of the deb package, enter your system password when prompted and follow any subsequent instructions:

   sudo dpkg -i acquia-drupal[version number]all.deb
   

   Installation errors - unmet dependencies, failed installation - If you see one or more error messages similar to these, follow the instructions below:

   dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of acquia-drupal6:
   acquia-drupal6 depends on apache2 | httpd; however:
   Package apache2 is not installed.
   Package httpd is not installed.
   acquia-drupal6 depends on dbconfig-common; however:
   Package dbconfig-common is not installed.
   acquia-drupal6 depends on exim4 | mail-transport-agent; however:
   Package exim4 is not installed.
   Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
   dpkg: error processing acquia-drupal6 (--install):
   dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
   Errors were encountered while processing:
   acquia-drupal6
   

   These error messages mean that one or more dependencies (other software that Acquia Drupal needs to be able to run) for installing and running acquia Drupal have not been met on your system.

   Run the following command to install the dependencies:

   sudo apt-get -f install
   

   Then rerun the Acquia Drupal installation package:

   sudo dpkg -i acquia-drupal[version number]all.deb
   

3. Install Acquia Drupal - To complete the installation of Acquia Drupal, you need to visit the installation page in your browser by adding the required site details like the site administrator's username, the name of the site and contact e-mail on the Drupal installation screen.

   Visit your site in the browser at http://localhost/acquia-drupal6 and fill in the required installation details.

Troubleshooting

Approaches to some common problems.

Increase PHP Memory limit

On some systems, only 16MB is allocated to PHP by default. This is officially the bare minimum for running Drupal, but in many situations it is not enough. In fact, memory limits of 64MB and higher are not uncommon on larger installations.

The easiest way to do this without changing settings on your local system is to add a line to Drupal's .htaccess file, located in the Drupal root directory, which by default is at /usr/share/acquia-drupal6.

1. Open .htaccess in a text editor and find these lines:

   # Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php
   # but the following cannot be changed at runtime.
   

2. Add the following immediately below them and save your changes:

   php_value memory_limit 32M  
   

3. Open a terminal and run the following command to restart Apache (this commits the changes you have made):

   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
   

There is an excellent resource covering this and various other to increase this limit on drupal.org: http://drupal.org/node/207036.

Clean URLs

Drupal's "clean URL" path rewriting functionality does not always work out of the box on every system. The following change to Drupal's .htaccess file, located in the Drupal root directory, which by default is at /usr/share/acquia-drupal6, should make it work:

1. Open .htaccess in a text editor and add the following to the bottom of the file:

   RewriteBase /acquia-drupal6
   

2. Open a terminal and run the following command to restart Apache (this commits the changes you have made):

   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
   

3. Navigate in the browser to this page in your locally installed Acquia Drupal site and enable clean URLs: http://localhost/acquia-drupal6/admin/settings/clean-urls.

Installation details

Drupal files - The Acquia Drupal package installer puts the Drupal docroot directory at /usr/share/acquia-drupal6. This is where you can add modules, multisite directories and carry out other Drupal tasks.

Apache configuration - The Acquia Drupal package installer creates a symlink from /etc/apache2/conf.d to /etc/acquia-drupal/6/apache.conf